Pilgrims to Jerusalem in the Middle Ages /

Chareyron (Paul Valery Univ., Montpellier, France) uses over a hundred 14th-, 15th-, and 16th-century pilgrimage accounts to create a portrait of pilgrims to the Holy Land in the late Middle Ages. These narratives reveal the diverse nature of late medieval pilgrimage, reflecting the image of their authors, be they clerics, nobles, or bourgeois merchants. Motivated by both personal curiosity and religious piety, these pilgrims wrote not just for themselves but also to convey to others the majesty and strangeness of far-off lands. In addition to the hazards inherent in their lengthy journeys, after the fall of Acre in 1291, Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land had to deal with Muslim rule there and the sometimes hostile local population. Their accounts provide a contemporary--if conflicted and at times simplistic--account of Muslim religious and social practices, as well as the complex interactions between Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the late Middle Ages. Ably translated by Wilson (emer., Waterloo Univ.), this book will be useful to those interested in medieval cultural, ethnographic, literary, and religious studies. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates through faculty/researchers. J. M. B. Porter Butler University